


Only You

by ChloeWinchester



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWinchester/pseuds/ChloeWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle is alone, and she only wants to dance with the person who matters most. It's a shame she only has a jar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only You

Her dance with Leroy didn’t last too long. Just the one song before he smiled at her, squeezed her hands and went to talk to his brothers about something.

She stood in the middle of the floor for a moment. The lights, the gowns, the people… Her friends all joined together and in the arms of the person they loved most. Even Henry was talking to a young girl with earbuds on their ears.

It hurt more than she thought it would.

She decided to go to try and distract herself. Take her mind off the floating petals around the flower for just a moment, just a few hours where she could dance and talk to her friends and everything would be okay for just a little while.

In about five minutes of being here she realized she didn’t have that many friends. The ones she did have were either a mermaid on an island with her true love, and absent werewolf or a warrior still in the enchanted forest. Beyond Leroy Belle’s companions were just...people she knew. People she wanted to help, but they weren’t close, they weren’t…

They weren’t her best friend. Her closest friend, the person she could tell everything to and always find a reason to smile with.

None of them were Rumple.

None of them were home.

Belle walked away, leaving the dancing and kissing behind her, trying not to think about her honeymoon. How beautiful it was to dance with him then, how wonderful it was to dance with him at all, any time she had.

Wrapping arms around his neck and swaying with him in the front parlour of the house, shushing his worry that his limp would send them toppling right over. Giggling as he lifted her clean off the ground when it was no more and spinning her around, grinning at her. Oh, hours passed and her feet had been so sore but he picked her up, carrying her through the house to make her laugh and smiled at her and kissed her and…

In that ballroom, just the two of them, his smile so soft, his eyes so warm and brimming with love for her. His soft kisses to her lips, whispering her new name to her to make her blush, her insisting they dance just once more, just one more time and he humored her.

She took the rose into her arms, holding it to her and looked at the ballroom again. She turned away, holding it close, and carried it up to her room, swallowing past the lump in her throat.

Belle sniffed and shut the door, her tears a little more free.

The jar was placed on the bed while she undid her shoes and tossed them away, in the midst of taking her hair down before she looked at the flower, eyes pained. She picked the jar up again and hugged it, closing her eyes.

“I wanted to dance with you,” she whispered. “I would have too, if we were here. You’re much better at this than they are, you know. Practice, I guess.” She traced the curve of the glass, her voice wavering. “I’ll bet you would’ve looked so handsome,” she whispered. “And-and when you saw me, you’d smile that little grin and hold my waist and kiss me and say my name. Nothing else, just my name. And you’d look at me awhile until someone came by and reminded us where we were supposed to go.”

Belle closed her eyes, swaying just a little to the music echoing downstairs.

“We’d stay all night,” she said, tears slipping down her face. “As late as they would play and then come up to bed. And you, you’d say something about how the dress may just look better on the floor than on me. And I’d say ‘Oh, do you really think so?’ and take it off. And you’d smile again, pull me close and confess you were right.”

She sniffed again, her movements broader. “I just want to dance with you,” she breathed, voice breaking.

He was so warm. His dark eyes glittered in candlelight, his hair would flow so gently through her fingers and she would smile at the gray there and at him. The way he looked at her, the way his skin felt against her cheek, how the simple gesture of his forehead nuzzling against hers warmed her heart to no end.

“Doesn’t matter if I’m still a bit angry with you,” she promised, sobbing once. “It wouldn’t matter, not tonight. Tonight we’d take for us to just be without problems and everything clogging it up. It wouldn’t matter. It hardly matters now, Rumple.”

In her gown Belle twirled once, still moving with the music, still clinging to the jar for dear life.

“I always feel safe with you,” she admitted. “But you aren’t here, and I don’t know how brave I can be without knowing you’ll be alright. I can’t be brave about this, Rumple, I’m frightened. I’m so scared, I’m so sorry.” She sobbed again.

“You can’t leave me,” she said firmly. “Not again, I won’t have it. I won’t have you leaving me again, I’ll find a way to wake you up, I will!”

Belle leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the jar, looking at all the petals floating around it. “We would’ve had such a good time, Rumple. Like everyone else, we would. Even if no one else spoke to us it wouldn’t matter. I don’t mind being in my own world if you’re here too. But you aren’t. You aren’t and I don’t know how to get you to open your eyes, let alone to Camelot to dance with me.”

He would whisper things to her to make her smile. Tell her the marble floor was part of a deal he made with the architect and he only charged him his left leg for it. He’d help her stay calm, help her focus, help her relax enough in that crowd to enjoy herself and she would do the same for him.

An hour in and the haze around the pair of them wouldn’t leave and it would be perfect. He’d be here, he’d be able to talk to her and sleep beside her and wake with her the next morning by tickling her nose. His warm hands would gently rub her back and he’d chide her for all the wine she had the night before, and she would say he had just as much and his headache must be just as great.

And if the morning was particularly good they’d share a bath. Kiss gently, caress skin. Then when the time came to talk about what happened, what they needed to sort through they would both be heavily reassured that they loved each other. That they wanted to be together.

Everything would be alright then.

If that happened.

But it hadn’t. It wouldn’t.

She was alone.

The music stopped and so did she. She looked at the jar and set it down on the table beside the bed, listening to the resonating silence that echoed in her chest.

Alone.

“I miss you so much.” She breathed, looking to the rose again.

Another petal dropped.

Belle collapsed on the bed and sobbed, crying herself to sleep. She would wake looking at the jar through puffy eyes, holding herself and pinched in the dress. She would roll over and look for Rumple, just in case, but he wouldn’t be there.

Her tears would be swallowed and she would get up, carrying the jar to the washroom with her.

And she would be comforted by the sweet, sweet dreams of dancing.

It was all she had.

 


End file.
